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11/20/2006: "Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School"

Last week I attended a two day course in technology negotiation put on by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. The course was very well constructed and run, and the process of Mutual Gains Negotiation that they recommend is very logical and intuitive. They brought in people from industry and interviewed them as part of the course, this was helpful because you could hear what was effective from people who were successful and then relate the process to their real-world comments. We also went through some problems submitted by members of the class, and we learned from lots of other folks in the class as well as the instructors. The class attracted people from very diverse industries and companies, and so the interactions were great. I know that what I learned is going to influence the way that I do my work going forward, and help me to prepare and get more value out of negotiations. The great thing about the PON is that they do the research, and they work in the industry of mediation and arbitration, so they bring a very practical process oriented approach to the subject. In an earlier post, I recommended "Difficult Conversations" and that book came out of earlier work by this program. I highly recommend the course and the methodology.